A WIDOW who discovered her husband had taken part in secret missions for the intelligence service throughout his life has published his diary, which tells the fascinating truths he kept secret for a lifetime.

Audrey Phillips, 85, of Ashton Common, Trowbridge, lived a relatively normal life with her husband Glyndwr in Box where he worked in many jobs and enjoyed playing for Box Rovers football team.

It wasn’t until three years after his death in 2015 that Mrs Phillips decided to read his diary, and found out he had been recruited into the intelligence service at just 13 and had carried out four secret missions, including helping to release VIPS held in prisons by Germans in World War Two.

Like Ruth Wilson, whose story was recently told in a BBC drama, whose husband told her he worked for the intelligence service in what turned out to be a tissue of lies, she had no idea of the secrets her husband had been hiding from her.

She said: “It has been quite disturbing because I keep thinking to myself ‘when did this stuff happen’ and ‘why didn’t I know anything about it’.

“All the time I’m going back and thinking, I had no idea at all.

“Two of the missions he was involved in before we got married, and the last ones I have puzzled and puzzled over when that happened. It is really quite weird.

“The book is completely written by him, it’s all his diary and his life story that he wrote before he died, and I thought it was a story worth sharing.”

With shades of popular teen author Robert Muchamore’s Cherub books, Operation XX and Me: Did I have a Choice? explains how Mr Phillips was recruited as a member of the intelligence force through his school when a General asked to see him.

His father had to give permission for him to join and so was the only member of his family who knew his secret.

Mr Phillips always questioned what choice, if any, he had in the events of his life and the route he took.

For his family his story has raised many questions that may never be answered.

Mrs Phillips added: “I don’t know if his mother ever got to know before she died.

“My family were absolutely astounded and our two children, now in their 60’s, were as puzzled as me.

Operation XX and Me: Did I have a Choice? is out on May 1 on Amazon.